Meanwhile, Across Town

While most of the boxing world’s focus is on the card at the StubHub Center in Carson featuring Abner Mares and Leo Santa Cruz, there is actually another televised card taking place in the Southland. The Glendale Civic Auditorium is staging a show televised by UniMas featuring the likes of Gilberto Ramirez and Jesse Magdaleno.

“I heard there was another show going on this Saturday. I’ve got a good friend of mine and client that happens to be working that show as a commentator,” joked Steve Bash of Bash Boxing, which is co-promoting this card with Top Rank. Bash works as an attorney in his day job and one of his clients is Paulie Malignaggi, who will be part of the broadcast crew for Showtime. “[Malignaggi] gets free tickets to the show, so basically, I take advantage of that but I’m not going to be able to this weekend.”

The reason this show is taking place is because the network slotted this date long ago. It was originally going to land at the Hollywood Park, mere minutes from the StubHub Center.

Bash, who co-promoted a “Solo Boxeo” card with Top Rank back in July, explained, “The process was we did a show last month at the Hollywood Park Casino, which happens to be about eight miles from Carson and really down the road from the 405 or the 11 - and we sold out. And when we say ‘sold out,’ we literally - for the first time - had to put a sign on the door that said, ‘Sold out’ and we had to turn a lot of people away for tickets and for the most part, to me, it was a combination of what we’ve been doing for a long time with our local shows and our database of fans and people that like going to our type of show, combined now with the availability of bigger and better talent on these shows with Top Rank.

“I think that combination really worked out well and literally that night, the guys at Top Rank said, ‘We got a slot on August 24th. Do you want it?’ And my first reaction was, ‘Well, I was looking forward to doing this once every two or three months as I usually do shows. I don’t necessarily want to do boxing shows every month but I said, ‘Call me Monday; let’s talk about it.’ We talked and the first thing I said was, ‘Well, I’m a little concerned about another show that happens to be that night, particularly if we go back to the same venue because it’s only eight miles apart. Look, let’s keep building this but let’s find a venue that’s a little bit further apart so we’re not in too much direct competition.”

Bash Boxing is a solid operation that has successfully done club shows for years. But they know their limits. On most nights, they aren’t going up against premium cable shows in their region.

“Because as good as our shows are and as good as our promoting and marketing may be, at the end of the day, there happens to be two title fights on Showtime and so forth,” pointed out Bash. “So I understand the situation Top Rank was in, which was now they have this UniMas deal where they basically have shows almost every week and they’ve got to fill these slots and they’ve got to find locations and venues where, ideally, the fighters they have under contract don’t have to do too much travel. For instance, Top Rank was in Laredo, Texas and this week, they’re in California. So a lot of the local fighters will fight on these shows.

“I understand that at the end of the day, this is a show that has a date and a slot already established on UniMas and it’s just a matter of location. So we said, ‘OK, let’s give it a try.’”

While the TV license fees for these cards are below six-figures (making most of these cards loss leaders), if you have local boxers who can sell a few tickets, you can scratch out a profit or maybe even come close to breaking even. Bash Boxing is an outfit that is used to not operating with the safety net of television money.

Over the years, they have cultivated a local fan base and a roster of boxers with local followings.

“There are a couple of fighters on the show that have 80 to 100 tickets [sold],” said Bash, “so those fighters are not like the fighters that are going to be on cable television or whatever else it is. These are four and six-round fighters that have a great following that do a good job of self-promoting themselves. So you can certainly do that type of show in the venue that we’re doing them in.

“At the end of the day, these are venues that hold 800 to 1,000 people, so you’re not pressured to fill a 5,000-seat venue. So we know going into these shows that half the tickets are sold and then it’s up to us to sell the other half.”

Glendale is one of the bigger counties of Los Angeles. They only need a very small percentage of the population to drop by.

“It’s just a matter of unpeeling, uncovering the local fans that are in that area,” said Bash.

TIX INFO

For those wanting to attend this card, here ya go:

Tickets starting at $30 can be purchased online atwww.glendaleglory.comor by calling (626) 388-8888. Doors Open at 6:30pm; First Bout at 7:00pm. All bouts are subject to change.

NO TIME

It really hasn’t affected boxing fans yet but I think, starting this weekend, the Time Warner Cable-CBS/Showtime deadlock will start to peeve a lot of people given that unless a deal is reached by Saturday, fans will miss out on this weekend’s card and the premiere of “All Access” for the September 14th showdown between Saul Alvarez and Floyd Mayweather.

The fight between Darren Barker and Daniel Geale had 791,000 viewers on HBO...The season finale of “Friday Night Fights” on ESPN2 features Argenis Mendez against Arash Usmanee and will begin at 9 p.m., ET...So no “Belldozer” for the Oklahoma Sooners?...Can you believe we are now less than a week away till the kickoff of college football?...I can be reached at k9kim@yahoo.com and I tweet at www.twitter.com/stevemaxboxing. We also have a Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/MaxBoxing, where you can discuss our content with Maxboxing readers as well as chime in via our fully interactive article comments sections.